Translation of an article by Joaquina Prades that appeared in "El País" on Sunday 20 April, 1997.
 
 
 
 
 

Bullfighting fans love him for his elegance in and out of the bullring. José Miguel Arroyo, Joselito, is a bullfighter as classical in the ring as he is atypical out of it.

        Photo by Gonzalo Cruz in the ABC color
        supplement, May 11 1997
 

 "BULLS HAVE GIVEN ME WHAT MY PARENTS COULDN'T"

He doesn't care for uniforms or the military. He rebels against priests, and preferred to dedicate a bull to a sick friend rather than to King Juan Carlos. José Miguel Arroyo, Joselito, (27 years old, Madrid born, stubborn as a good Taurean and as provocative as the Cocks of the Chinese horoscope) is not a run-of-the-mill bullfighter although he does conform to the cliché image of a bullfighter in having a cattle ranch, a Mercedes and a discreet girlfriend. For many bullfighting fans he is Number One, the most elegant, the quintessential matador. The fact that he was carried triumphantly shoulder-high out of the La Maestranza bullring in Sevilla last Monday - a dream that had pursued him for eleven years - is proof that he is in good form for the season.

Despite the lights, applause and trappings of the bullfight, Joselito has not lost part of the innocence and mischievousness of when he was a poor boy who dreamed of being rich and successful as a bullfighter. Those are things he has already achieved. He lives with his family on a wonderful ranch and is having another house built for when wedding bells ring, which, rumour has it, is not far off. Even so, and despite the fact that the house is full of people, when the phone or the doorbell rings and nobody answers, he himself gets up, interrupts the conversation and attends to it. He is still a normal guy who hates "posh types" and who tries, with an attitude of permanent rebellion against everything and everyone, to hide the fact that he is good-hearted.

Question. When you became a fully fledged professional bullfighter in May 1986, Joaquín Vidal wrote "Joselito has entered the army of matadors with the rank of marshal". After leaving the ring triumphantly, shoulder high, in Sevilla, being hailed in similar fashion in the Las Ventas ring in Madrid, and being awarded a tail in the Monumental Ring in Mexico, do you consider you've made it to field marshal?

Answer. Not yet. It's true that I've achieved a few things, but I 've got new challenges to face. Being successful in those three rings, the most important ones in the world, has, of course, been crucial for me. But I've already got new dreams. I've got to improve day by day until I reach my ceiling. That helps me keep up my enthusiasm and carry on in my profession.

Q. Do you think you still have far to go to reach your ceiling?

A. Who knows? I know that the moment will arrive when I say "I can't go any further". And I know that at that moment I'll start to go downhill. I'll stop bullfighting then. But, for the time being, I really enjoy facing bulls, and I can improve. That stokes my enthusiasm and that's why I carry on. If my enthusiasm wanes, as happened to me on August 15 last year, I'll give up.

Q. So you thought about retiring last year?

A. Yes. I'd been going through a very bad patch of eight or nine bullfights when the bulls didn't charge well. I didn't get the measure of them; I don't know, I just didn't feel good. Then, on August 15 in Béziers (France) I went through a really bad experience. I told my body to do things, but it didn't respond. My mind said "Keep calm", but it was no good. It was as if I was talking to someone else. I couldn't go on and didn't want to.

Q. Why did that happen?

R. I don't know. Maybe because from July the twenty something until August fifteenth I had a bullfight almost every day and the last ten were horrible. I didn't have time to stop and think, to analyze myself and try to answer the questions Who am I? What am I? What do I want?

Q. No small matter.

A. Yes. And the worst thing was that I had signed for more appearances and there was no way to stop. So on August 15 I said to Enrique (Enrique Martín Arranz, his adoptive father and manager) "That's enough". He said "Wait and see. We'll rest for three days and maybe you'll change your mind". I went back to work a bit better, but still felt bad inside. One day I was awarded three ears and the crowd was delighted. But inside I said to myself "You haven't done well". Then one day I had a really bad afternoon and reached rock bottom. The following day I appeared in Bilbao and little by little started to recover and see that I was capable of performing well and doing new things. That's why I carry on.

Q. Are you feeling OK for your upcoming appearances in Madrid in the San Isidro Festival and the Charity Fight?

A. Yes, very well. Although I don`t know how long it's going to last. Maybe it'll only last a couple of weeks, because in the middle of the bustle I need to stop and think. I need to feel good inside, regardless of what people say  

   Photo by Michel Dreyfuss from 1997                 
               report in "Torero y Toros". 

about me. There are afternoons when people get really excited and you think "What a load of rubbish!". And others, when the public is cold, but you think "Today I performed with my soul, not simply with my head". That's what really counts with me.
     

Q. When you became a fully fledged professional bullfighter at 16, you said that, above all, you had learned to "think" when facing a bull. What did you mean by that?

A. Thinking when you face a bull is the most difficult thing of all. There are moments when your inner channels seize up because you are under a lot of different pressures. First, there’s the pressure from facing an animal that could gore you at any moment; then, the pressure from the crowd, who want to see the best bullfight of their lives; and, thirdly, the pressure that comes from wanting to give everything and not make the slightest mistake. All this gets to you. On Monday, in La Maestranza when I was behind the barrier before the fight started, my heart was pounding so much my chest hurt. I had to put my hand on it to hold it down because it felt like it was about to burst, and we hadn't even started. That's the pressure and that's what you have to put behind you to be able to look at the bull and think "What can I do with this animal? In tenths of a second you have to see how it moves and how to approach it, and sometimes you reach a high, which is when you think to yourself "My body doesn't exist. I'm fighting with my soul. My soul is flowing out through my fingertips". That's when it's magical.

Q. Your soul flows out through your fingertips?

A. Yes, because your fingertips are the part of you that is closest to the bull. That's bullfighting. When people say we bullfighters have to be professional, I think "What rubbish!" If someone tells me I'm a professional, they're offending me. I'm an artist, divine or disasterous, as I can be both, but I don't go out there to work with bulls, I go out there to surrender my feelings, my dreams and all my passion.

Q. With all the gorings you have suffered, one of which, in 1987, was very serious, how do you prepare yourself mentally so that you don't suffer that cold sensation in your fingers (you mentioned earlier)?

A. It isn't easy because you realize that it's not a game. My most serious goring happened when I was 19 years old, and when you're that age you think that that sort of thing happens to other people until you see that it isn't like that. When it's your turn, it's your turn; and it's each to their own destiny. As far as gorings are concerned, everyone says "It's something to be proud of; it's a trophy". No way! I wish I'd got this far without a scratch, but, unfortunately, bulls have taken their toll. I've been gored ten times. Among my generation I'm the one that has been gored most.

A. Sometimes they take me by surprise, but other times I sense it coming. You say to yourself "Maybe today. It could happen today" and that's when I realize I'm brave, because I'm thinking that it might injure me, but, even so, I don't protect myself; I don't change my way of fighting. You look at the animal and you say "You choose, come on. Here's the "muleta" and here's my body. You decide".

Q. Can the bull tell when you're feeling low?

A. Always. If it senses you're down, there's nothing you can do. I've gone out many afternoons into the ring like a loser and as sure as anything, I've screwed up. Now I try not to be so negative and not to give up on myself before the bullfight starts.

Q. And do you manage it?

A. More and more. But, I'm still very changeable. When people ask me what I'm like, I don't really know what to say. I'm a lot of different things and some are contradictory. One day I feel like a god and the next like rubbish. I'm continually like that, with such enormous ups and downs. But that happens because I'm an artist, maybe emotionally unbalanced, but an artist has got to be like that. You can't be creative from an average starting point. It's also that I'm trying to find myself with the romanticism and idealism that I can feel, but also, by being a dope. I've got every right to make mistakes; that's the way I learn.

Q. When you started as a bullfighter, you were a teenager. Do you think that a boy of sixteen is aware of what he's doing, what the stakes are and what he's getting himself into?

A. Maybe not, but it makes you grow up fast. What I'm not sure about now is whether it's good to grow up out of necessity. But those are the questions I ask myself when I feel I should stop and be on my own. I needed to get into the world of bullfighting because I desperately needed money. Children are very cruel. All my friends had one thing or another, and I didn't have anything. Bulls have given me what my parents couldn't.

Q. When you came out of the Bullfighting School, your adoptive father said to you "Let's go for the hundred million (pesetas). You replied "No, for the five hundred million" Were they difficult to earn?

A. Yes, very much so. But I earned them, and a few more; enough to buy four ranches and be the owner of over a thousand head of cattle. Well, I'm not the only owner; I have half shares with my adoptive parents, Enrique and Adela. Now I can feel confident that my family will never want for anything and that I can have my own family someday. And when I retire, I'll be able to live as a cattle rancher in touch with Nature, which is the most marvellous thing in the world.

Q. As far as the ranches and the Mercedes are concerned, you have followed the bullfighters' tradition, but as for the rest, you're rather atypical. You're not even religious.

A. Believe in God..Yes, I believe, although I believe in the Catholic God because I was born here. If I'd been born some place else, God would be Allah or Buddha. I don't pray before a bullfight. Afterwards, in the shower, I give thanks for everyone having come out of it alright.

Q. At a Press Bullfight you preferred to dedicate a bull to your colleague El Bote, who was in hospital recovering from a goring, rather than to the king.

A. Of course, El Bote is a friend of mine. And the king may be the king, but he doesn't come before a friend.

Q. Has Time softened the rebellious streak?

A. A little, yes. That's normal. And I know that in spite of all the bad things that life has put me through, like when my mother abandoned me when I was three years old, I am fortunate. I have my health, a family that puts feelings before everything else; it's a family that I chose, like you choose your friends, because I wanted to be their son when I was eleven, when my father died; and they adopted me because they loved me. I have a creative job and am well-paid for it. But, above all, I know that if I had to start again from scratch, I would have enough of what it takes to get on alright. Yes, I'm very lucky.
 

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